Over the past week or two, there have been many news accounts of ordinary citizens attending town hall meetings, confronting their congressional representative with their objections to the Health Care Bill that Congress is trying to push on top of us. The complaints are many. It costs too much. It will do away with existing, private health care plans. It will give too much authority to the government. It will cause health care rationing. And the list goes on.
Now, all of these are very valid complaints. And after reading about this bill, as well as looking at examples of other countries that currently have this government-sponsored health care, these issues are very accurate.
Now we see that the Democrat leadership (both in Congress and the White House) is trying to fight back, to try to get a foothold in this debate, as they can now see that they are losing on this issue. They have done everything in their power to demean the people who are speaking out against this issue. They are trying to threaten those who speak out against them. They are being nothing more than playground bullies on this issue.
They have accused the 'protesters' of being organized by the Republican Party. I know this is not true. I would not give the Republican Party that much credit right now. Then, the liberals go to their playbook. They blame entities like Fox News and talk radio (esp. Rush Limbaugh).
Their argument goes something like this: Conservatives are too stupid to create their own opinions so they have to listen to Fox News and Rush Limbaugh in order to get the day's talking points. I find this viewpoint narrow-minded. Conservatives know what they believe and why they believe it. We do not like it when someone tells us what to think.
But there is an irony in all of this: Liberals can only argue in Democrat talking points. They do not have original thoughts of their own, as can be seen by their continual use of the Fox News/Rush Limbaugh argument. In fact, this argument is so popular amongst liberals that the President even uses it when he cannot get his way on something.
Now, the congressional leaders are saying that these protests are part of a small, lunatic fringe of the radical right. Barbara Boxer said that the protesters are too well dressed to be concerned citizens (as though, ordinary citizens do not dress neatly). Harry Reid said that these protesters are trying to destroy the democratic process. I am not sure how he arrives at that conclusion, as though speaking out on issues to your elected representative is a bad thing. I would think that trying to cram a bill through Congress that the overwhelming majority of Americans does not want and limiting debate on that bill is more responsible for the death of democracy. But who am I?
The same people that are decrying these opponents to the health care proposals are the same ones who spoke out against the Tea Parties earlier this year. They do not like that fact that we do not agree with them. To the elected representatives, power does not exist with the people. It exists with the government. They want the power for themselves, and they want to remove anyone that gets in their way, a la Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro.
The administration is doing their best to strong-arm everyone in their own party to get behind this bill. They are trying to bully the American people into getting behind this bill. And now they are getting physical with some of the protesters at these town hall meetings around the country. They want to beat us into submission. If they were really intent on getting the American people behind them, they would try to persuade us, not beat us. That tactic is just turning more people against them.
It is time we stand up and tell our elected representatives that they work for us. We put them there. If they are not going to listen to us, then we will vote for someone who will. We should not be living in fear of what they may do to us. They ought to be afraid of us and not voting based on the will of the people.
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